Dismissal (Lent Poems 24)
It is finished.
Return to your strongholds, prisoners;
Wait there for your deliverer.
Return to your fortress; raise the ramparts;
Take your positions, curled up in the corner,
Drawbridge raised, not to be lowered any
Time soon. Let the moat surround you; let
Your friends and allies hide deep in their pit
Dug far, far below the troubles of the ground.
There wait: wait in terror, wait in fear,
In thwarted belief, imprisoned
By hope, deferred, now put outside
The drawbridge, with the rubbish and
The taunts of the sunrise. Return
To your strongholds. Hold on
To the skin of your teeth. Hide
And hold strong. There’s
Nothing more to see.
The Consolations of Writing 